The Lighter Side of Crippling Depression
by Strangely Coloured Dog
Summary: This is the brief and utterly bizarre story of a boy rejected as a member of Avalanche. What more can I say?


Notes: There are no notes because there's no point. Pretty straightforward approach for something entirely crooked and backwards. Enjoy.  
  
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Little Jimmy was a pyromaniac with a heart of gold, something society tends to frown upon. His father was a man like any other, strutting about in his blue uniform like God's gift to militant assholes, ever twirling his moustache despite that fact that he didn't have one. He had lost it in an unexplained house fire.  
  
Jimmy was the son of a Shinra soldier and a professional passive- aggressivist, which wasn't, as far as the poor boy knew, even a real word. There was hypocrisy in the air on Christmas morning when one parent gambled away the other's drinking money, while the other parent drank away the first one's gambling money. How that was possible was anyone's guess.  
  
Poor Jimmy was left to wonder how it was that his family was celebrating Christmas when they lived on a Planet bereft of Christianity.  
  
Just another mystery of life. Just another reason poor Jimmy turned to setting things on fire. There was comfort to be found in the flames. Fire, as a rule, can't drink with putting itself out, and can't gamble except under very extenuating circumstances, which are best left to the imagination.  
  
Jimmy celebrated his sixteenth birthday by burning his family's house down, claiming the life of his father's precious moustache in the process. Now there was an army of men in blue out for his blood and/or matches, and he had to flee the upper world of Midgar. Down to the bottom. Down to the Slums.  
  
The soldiers wouldn't followed him there due to a loophole in their contract releasing them from any responsibility involving a small fire- loving boy hiding in a building that was made entirely out of tequila bottles and lemon rinds. It was a very specific loophole, one the soldiers had never really thought would come in handy, but it gave them a certain feeling of freedom in this case. After all, in a blatant display of foresight, they had given up their medical plan for that loophole, a medical plan they desperately needed, what with all the tequila drinking they were doing.  
  
The health of the Shinra soldier's livers aside, Jimmy had found such a home, a home of lemon rinds and tequila bottle no less, two things which walk hand in hand down the Road to Dementia. It might be a bit rank smelling, but it wasn't particularly flammable, something which gave Jimmy stability, responsibility. Solidity and immovability. A place to return home to after a fun filled day of trying to set fire to the various sex- shops that dotted Sector Six.  
  
Setting fire to a sex-shop gave Jimmy some perverse pleasure, for he could watch through the windows as certain product within wilted under the heat. Limpened, if you will, although as it turns out, that isn't a word either. The limpening of those certain products, products which were supposed to have unyielding rigidity mind you, made Jimmy almost forget about his troubled home life.  
  
But when he returned to that troubled home life, the home life of lemon rinds and tequila bottled which will be referred to here for the last time, Jimmy breathed out a sigh of unbridled depression of the unfunniest variety. How had it come to this?  
  
It was Shinra's fault! Who did that President Shinra think he was, in his office so high above the rest of the people? Just because a man lives in the sky doesn't mean you have to blindly follow him! As he had already established, there was no Christianity in this world. (rim-shot)  
  
So Jimmy put away his lighter for a time, and picked up a megaphone, which was, by an astonishing coincidence given to him by a talking cat that shouldn't have existed at this point in history at all. That was just the sort of luck that Jimmy was having. Call it fate.  
  
It was time to give a speech! To get these drooling bums away from their heroin and bootleg spirographs and rise up against the sky man! Just because a man has a luxury sedan for every inch of penis denied to him by the gods doesn't make him immortal!  
  
The speech, as it was, fell flat, and there is no need to repeat it here. It was a dark, dark day for the Slums when Jimmy stood on his soapbox. It was, quite literally, a soapbox, a place where the various bums could voice their opinions and their anger. And what a beautiful idea that was. But those bums didn't have megaphones, and so Jimmy's credibility was lost before he even realized that he had it in the first place. Essence of tragedy. Jimmy's life was full of that.  
  
Imagine the poor boy's disappointment when he found out that he was not the first one to have the idea of being angry at the Shinra. No apparently all of the good old drooling bums had already had that idea some time ago.  
  
But Jimmy's hope were peaked once more when he heard of a small group named Avalanche. Oh yes, he had found his niche. A place when the little-boy- who-nobody-wanted (on account of the fires) could grow up and be loved.  
  
Surely the fearless leader of this group would take him in, treat him like a son. After all, Jimmy was as lovable as a singed homeless raving lunatic child could be, and that was pretty damn lovable.  
  
As it turned out, Jimmy had been mistaken about his lovability levels. He found Avalanche's fearless leader easily enough, as he was a large man. Larger than a man should be, really. Barret Wallace, upon first sight, appeared to be about ninety percent man, ten percent machine, and seventy percent physical impossibility, adding up to a percentage that could only exist in the physically impossible men and woman of the world. Beggars can't be choosers though, and Jimmy asked Barret if he could join.  
  
The response hadn't been tremendously positive. Jimmy still has the scars, buried somewhere beneath the burns. Drifting in the rain, he came across a dark haired woman, and was unable to resist the urge to ask her if there was anything that needed burning. Old habits die hard, after all, and since his new plans had fallen though, leaving him rather bruised, he could used some of the soothing fires to cheer his battered soul.  
  
The question behind the flames in Jimmy's mind was one of sheer curiosity. Why were all the physically impossible people out today? Was this their national holiday? Probably not, what with all the tyranny from above.  
  
Figures that Shinra would repress the physically impossible. Bastards.  
  
The woman was zero percent machine, something of a relief, but appeared to be about one hundred and forty five percent woman, which seemed a little unnatural in itself.  
  
She had the nerve to turn down his offer to burn things for her! Damn the physically impossible and all their arrogance. Now she was off talking to some blonde guy who looked like he had just been electrocuted and was speaking in a stream of oog-sounds, like he was Swedish or something.  
  
Which begs the question, just who the fuck were the Swedish? Did they have something to do with this elusive Christianity thing that was not of Jimmy's world?  
  
Seeing as the blonde guy was waving a sword around like a maniac in between his oogs. Jimmy had only one rule of philosophy to live by: never approach men saying oog and waving a big sword at you. It was a specific rule, though not as specific as the soldiers precious contractual loophole. Jimmy had a knack for bringing out the reality in the obscure. Or maybe it was the other way around.  
  
Figuring that the blonde guy was going to bring the physically impossible woman nothing but trouble, Jimmy went home to sleep away his troubles and be oblivious to his spark of foresight.  
  
He didn't notice when Meteor was in the sky. No one bothered to tell poor little Jimmy that the world was about to end. He lived in his own world anyway. He had given the real one a shot, but it hadn't really worked out for him.  
  
Besides, he had gone blind from poking himself in the eye with a spork. He thought it was an ingenious invention, half spoon, half fork, it looked so much less dangerous then a regular fork. It was soothing and round, how could he not poke himself in the eye with it? And then, how could he not poke himself in the other eye, in case there had been some sort of mistake?  
  
But Jimmy and the Spork is another adventure, one which will never be written, because at this point, the world of such wacky inventions like Christianity and Swedish people are wishing that this one had never been written either. In answer to your question, no I can't give you back the precious minutes of your life that you wasted on this.  
  
Jimmy, the boy rejected by every level of the hierarchy, including several that didn't even exist, will live on in all of our hearts. Our prayers go out to you Jimmy. We know you missed the boat. Hell, you weren't even a the dock. You were landlocked in someplace like Kansas, without even the hope of a tornado to take you back to Oz (or wherever the hell you're from). I think we've all been there, right? No? Well then, Jimmy you're a loser and a maniac and let us never speak of this again.  
  
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Words of Wisdom: Okay, not really words of wisdom. Okay, why would I do this, you ask? Good question. Who knows? I needed a little break from Invisible Preacher and the Minds of Heroes, my long/serious story, and I felt like putting something up. This is, believe it or not, the first thing that came to my head. I think it's win-win. You all get a few minutes of entertainment/confusion/disgust/anger, and I get one more thing I can use as evidence in court should I ever have to plead insanity, which frankly, is bound to happen sooner or later. (Your Honor, why would anyone in their right mind have a train of thought that looks like THIS?)  
  
Good question. There's no answer. 


End file.
